2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: The Full Release of the TPP May Just End Clinton's Primary Candidacy [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)The public announcement was merely that the deal had been finalized. The exact text that had been agreed upon hadn't yet been released when Clinton made her statement of opposition (a statement that was itself somewhat tepid and hedged, but let's put that aside for the moment).
In response to reporters' questions, the White House confirmed that the text had not been made public and had not been sent to anyone. In this post you can see a couple clips of Josh Earnest, the White House Press Secretary, addressing the point.
Furthermore, the agreement is thousands of pages long. I think she announced her opposition the day after it was finalized. Even if she got a copy from some unspecified but totally reliable source, did she pull an all-nighter reading it and discussing it with experts in the many different fields that are covered, and thus arrive at her conclusion?
It would also be interesting to hear her explain what was different between the draft that she praised as the "gold standard" and the final agreement. Did the Obama administration make huge errors in the negotiations after her departure?
I'm going with Occam's Razor here. She was for the TPP but then, facing a significant challenge from her left in her quest for the nomination, she flip-flopped on it.